I visited a fjord over March break. We headed up island as a family and walked amongst the treetops on a boardwalk in the sky. After climbing 32 meters in the air we had a literal ‘bird’s eye view’ of the fjord. All around were pine trees and cedars. The ocean was vast and we searched its surface for whales and seals and otters. In the distance we could see the United States and snow topped Mount Baker in Washington State. It was breathtaking. And then we read the sign.
It was an information bulletin simply explaining that the fjord, in all its beauty, was an oxygen free zone. The Saanich Inlet is a deep glacial fjord but is separated from the adjacent ocean waters by a shallow sill that restricts the water inflow to once a year. This beautiful, stunning landscape is devoid of oxygen and therefore marine life. The only lifeforms that can exist are bacteria and for a small period of time, zooplankton when in the fall high tides flood the basin and overflow into the inlet bringing life giving oxygen. And so, a species thrives, and then dies. This beautiful, attractive ecosystem is a natural dead zone. By simply looking below the surface, we don’t see life, but death.
There is a lesson here about our spiritual well-being. The human spirit is an amazing, resilient and beautiful thing. There are kind and loving and gentle and humble folk in all walks of life and even in many different faiths. Of course there are, because we have ALL been made in the image of God; we only live because He has breathed the breath of life into our lungs. And yet, despite being beautiful on the outside, on the inside we can be a dead zone. When we are separated from the Word of God and fellowship with Him, corporately and in prayer, we are living in an oxygen depraved environment and our souls suffer. We need the life-giving oxygen only possible from remaining in Him. Our outward beauty can be deceptive. We can be kind and pleasant people but take a look below the surface and we very simply may be dying because we do not have the ‘oxygen’ we need for life.
I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. Apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers…Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. (John 15:4, 5,6)
Apart from me [Jesus] you can do…nothing.
It makes no sense to take a deep breath and then try to get through life on the limited oxygen in our lungs from that one gasp. Similarly, it makes no sense to try to face the highs and lows, joys…and sorrows of life without drawing deeply on the Giver of Life Himself. We need not be a dead zone. We need not live in such a way as to be merely surviving and not thriving. The solution is simple. We stop separating our daily lives from the life-giving waters offered through Jesus, and instead, drink deeply.
(The Samaritan Woman—John 4:7-31)
[Jesus] ‘If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water.’”Sir,” the woman said, “You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, and did also his sons and his livestock?” Jesus answered, ‘Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’
Beauty is all around us. Beauty is within us. But don’t miss the deeper message. God Himself is the giver of life and the source of all we need. We need to come first to Him, receive His gift of forgiveness and eternal life, and then function in the habitat in which we have been placed not on our own strength but by drawing, daily, from Him. We must belong to the Gardener and then remain in the vine for the life-giving nourishment that allows us to flourish in this world. That oxygen rich water is simply on the other side of the sill. Don’t wait for it to overflow into your life once or twice a year but instead dip in and feed your soul with the oxygen rich life-giving water through abiding in Him each and every day.
Our song for today is Living Hope by Phil Wickham